Had any alien society ben completly Federationalised?
- Thread starter Yevetha
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I think the OP is asking whether any culture who has joined the Federation has fully moved away from their own cultural values and adopted everything that the Federation stands for. The Federation isn't dominated by Earth culture, in fact it's far from that. The Federation has an agreed set of laws and principles that members are expected to adopt to, but the cultural norms of any given member is also just as important.
A race like the Klingons would probably not be able to join the Federation. Many of their cultural traditions include fights to the death and mutiny, should an official or leader be considerd "dishonourable".
To answer the OP's question, I would say no, not that we have seen on screen anyway. No members of the Federation have left behind their personal cultural values in order to embrace that of Earth or Starfleet.
A race like the Klingons would probably not be able to join the Federation. Many of their cultural traditions include fights to the death and mutiny, should an official or leader be considerd "dishonourable".
To answer the OP's question, I would say no, not that we have seen on screen anyway. No members of the Federation have left behind their personal cultural values in order to embrace that of Earth or Starfleet.
I think it's probably fair to say that there are certain key principles that all Federation Member States must adhere to -- they can probably be boiled down to "liberty, equality, and justice" -- but that beyond that, every Member State gets to determine its own culture and values.
Supposedly, the culture on the "Gangster Planet" (Piece of the Action) completely switched over to "Starfleet Planet," emulating the people from the stars who visited them, and left behind a communicator.
I don't know if it true, but there are stories that a unfinished script had a Starfleet vessel return to that world to find that 1930's Chicago was replaced with a replica of a Starbase.
Is that what you were asking?
One thing I wish they explored more of...or at all, was the ways that the human memberworld was different from the Federation. What kind of government, culture, and technologies (ships) were more human than of a conglomeration of the best of all the members. They didn't have a problem conjuring Vulcan ships or clothes or what have you - what about human? ...I know, I know, we're the cultural imperialists that are assimilating all the other aliens to the Americ-, uh, Federation way of life.
Supposedly, the culture on the "Gangster Planet" (Piece of the Action) completely switched over to "Starfleet Planet," emulating the people from the stars who visited them, and left behind a communicator.
I don't know if it true, but there are stories that a unfinished script had a Starfleet vessel return to that world to find that 1930's Chicago was replaced with a replica of a Starbase.
Is that what you were asking?
I've wanted to write a follow up to "Action" for years. Has somebody already written one?
One of the few things we know about Earth, is that it appears to have a parlimentary based Governemt (at least prior to the mid 22nd century) as each member world has it's own government there is no reason to think that hasn't continued into the Federation era.
Is the transporter a human piece of technology? clearly the Federation Starfleet ships follow a human design origin.
Considering that the so-called "starfleet gospel" was only ever an issue with one or two characters who were both human, then no, I would imagine not. To say nothing of the silliness of being "Federationalized" when the Federation is a collection of unique alien culture. 
Or then the first true starships built by humans (read: NX-01 and her apparent immediate predecessor Intrepid) were built to an alien design. Which would make quite a bit of sense for an upstart interstellar power. The Japanese first dominated the Pacific with distinctly British-style battleships until creating their own style... Earth may have risen to a dominant position in the UFP while adhering to an ages-old Rigelian style of shipbuilding!
I don't think we've ever really seen more than one alien world adopt human/American values unless it was indicated to possess those from the start.
The Ferengi have apparently steered away from their originally outlined culture by the end of DS9, without actually becoming UFP members or even striving for such a thing. And the new values they have adopted have indeed been of the "liberty, equality, justice" vein. The Ferengi seem to stand alone in this respect, but they do serve as Exhibit A for your question, I think.
...Whether Starfleet values liberty, equality and justice is source for another debate, though. It's a military, after all, and thus the authorized practitioner of all those nasty things the civilians must be stopped from doing. But Starfleet seems to be tasked with imposing/enforcing those nice values on the Federation and the worlds under its wings, even if the organization itself has to resort to other types of approach to accomplish that goal.
Timo Saloniemi
I don't think we've ever really seen more than one alien world adopt human/American values unless it was indicated to possess those from the start.
The Ferengi have apparently steered away from their originally outlined culture by the end of DS9, without actually becoming UFP members or even striving for such a thing. And the new values they have adopted have indeed been of the "liberty, equality, justice" vein. The Ferengi seem to stand alone in this respect, but they do serve as Exhibit A for your question, I think.
...Whether Starfleet values liberty, equality and justice is source for another debate, though. It's a military, after all, and thus the authorized practitioner of all those nasty things the civilians must be stopped from doing. But Starfleet seems to be tasked with imposing/enforcing those nice values on the Federation and the worlds under its wings, even if the organization itself has to resort to other types of approach to accomplish that goal.
Timo Saloniemi
There was a comic book about it. Not sure I can find it now, but I remember it was a good read.
And not that it would interest anybody, but I'm playing that scenario in my current role-playing game campaign. It's quite fun, and makes for interesting in-play ethical choices.
I want to say David Gerrold, when they were just starting to write scripts for TNG.
Earth/human colonies (or rather former colonies), they can't all be federation members, where did they go culturally and politically? And what about humans who, instead of emigrating to a Earth colony, went to a alien world? Did they all live on a Human enclaves (gettos?), or did they assimulate into the native culture.
When Human had access to passage on alien ships, after Cochrane's first flight, but before Human ships could do more than warp one, did they travel to alien home worlds and alien colonies? Some of them with their entire families with the intent to stay and build a life.
How long after first contact with the Vulcans was it before there was a Italian restuarant in the Denobulan capital city?
The Federation is presumably dominated by 22nd C Earth political culture, which is not all that much like Earth culture today. Fed values are basically the American liberal interventionist values of Gene Roddenberry - humanism + an aggressive attitude that can be downright imperialistic at times. (Other aspects of culture such as religion, food, clothing, music, etc vary widely among Federation planets and aren't part of the Federation gospel at all. It's not required that Fed worlds be atheist for example, only that they practice no form of religious bigotry or oppression.)
These values are espoused by a tiny proportion of humanity right now, but for whatever reason (I'm sure the story is fascinating), Earth was taken over by them. The Andorians presumably didn't object too much (maybe they happened to synch up well with their culture). Vulcan principles of logic don't seem to have made much of an inroad on the Federation, but the Vulcans played ball anyway. From that point on, Fed values spread in ameoba-like fashion.
I would imagine that all Fed worlds need to undergo some cultural adjustment to meet the very particular parameters of Fed membership, while retaining cultural attributes (such as non-bigoted forms of religion) that are consistent with Fed values.
After the founding of the Federation, Earth/Fed culture (probably hard to separate the two) kept evolving to some degree, most notably in the economic arena. When the replicator was invented in the 24th C, that killed off the last vestiges of capitalism, which probably hadn't been very strong even before that, certainly not the dominant force it is today.
That's a different kind of culture. The Feddie kool-ade is specifically a set of political ideals: liberal humanism combined with an aggressive, expansionist attitude towards their dissemination. It comes from a very particular type of American political thought that Roddenberry was apparently a fan of. In modern terms, combine the no-judgments liberalism of Democrats with the exporting-democracy aggression of Republicans and you've got the general idea.
Because of the split in political philosophy there, the two strains of thought have become more separated in the modern world than they were in Roddenberry's day. His ideas were shaped by WWII, which used violence to ensure the survival and spread of democratic ideals. But the rarer this philosophy gets in the world, the more authentically sci fi it feels, so that's cool.
And there are no Italian restaurants in the Federation anymore. They can't compete with Klingon cuisine.
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It's on.
Does the federation export democracy? Kirk exports a culture needing to grow and suffer ("Paradise," "Archons," "Apple"). But that's not the same as democracy. Ad he leaves chief-ruled societies to be governed that way ("Apple," "Friday's," "Private.").
The other series I'm not knowledgable of, but my take on TNG is that they're preachier, but even less interventionist.
The fed seems a collection of like-minded planets. If you aren't of like mind, you don't want to join, anyway.
No?
The other series I'm not knowledgable of, but my take on TNG is that they're preachier, but even less interventionist.
The fed seems a collection of like-minded planets. If you aren't of like mind, you don't want to join, anyway.
No?
Yes. Humans.
(A classic case of "not seeing the forest for the trees")
Think about it: Humans in the TNG era do not behave like humans. (The nonexistence-of-money thing is the most obvious spring-to-mind symptom, and that's just the start)
They've been drinking Vulcan koolaid for 200 years, and it shows.
Well the Vulcan get to practice arranged marriges and ritual combat to the death. The Ardanans practiced segregation. Both are Federation members. Other cultures also seem to have their own little peccadilloes. The Feds seem a bit leanient and willing to turn a blind eye. So there might not be a monolithic Fed culture.
Of course the "Starfleet Gospel" might not be the same as "Federation Culture" or policy.
Of course the "Starfleet Gospel" might not be the same as "Federation Culture" or policy.
Where is there the slightest indication that Ardana's culture changed?
Unless you meant "Aradan."
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